Digital Fountain's New ``Transporter Fountain'' Revolutionizes Enterprise Data Distribution; Newest Digital Fountain Server Targets Mission-Critical Enterprise Applications.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 10, 2001

Digital Fountain has introduced Transporter Fountain(TM), a new delivery system for reliable, high-speed distribution of mission-critical data across wide area networks. Transporter Fountain joins the Digital Fountain family of server appliances that have revolutionized the delivery of large files and rich content over standard communications networks. Specially designed for enterprises that move large mission-critical files among globally dispersed locations, Transporter Fountain dramatically speeds the delivery of such data with 100 percent reliability and with a measure of control and flexibility not possible with traditional methods. Digital Fountain also announced the first customer win for the Transporter Fountain today in a separate release.

"Our new Transporter Fountain has been expressly designed with the enterprise customer in mind," said Cliff Meltzer, chief executive officer for Digital Fountain. "The Transporter Fountain fits seamlessly within an enterprise network environment and file distribution system. With this product we satisfy the mission-critical need of many companies today to transfer large files among their locations and to their partners and customers, rapidly and with 100% reliability -- thus accelerating their product development cycle, saving costs and decreasing their time to market. Our single compelling argument is: Time is Money."

New Features Designed for an Enterprise's Mission-Critical Needs

Transporter Fountain provides multiple new ways to distribute data to systems across wide area networks. As with other Fountain Servers, data transfer can be initiated from the receiving side. But, with Transporter Fountain, administrators also have the ability to send, or "push," content to selected departments, inter-departmental project teams, or even a single user or server. The administrator can select files or directories for delivery to the designated destinations at a designated time.

Enterprises can easily integrate Transporter Fountain into their current file sharing system and network infrastructure. With the Transporter Fountain, hot directories can be set up for high speed transport, and files and directories moved between servers using standard methods, with a simple "drag-and-drop" operation. Transporter Fountain supports Network Attached Storage (NAS) and is easily integrated within the most widely accepted methods of fast, seamless file sharing today -- Network File System (NFS), Common Internet File System (CIFS) and its predecessor SMB, as well as File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

Meta-Content is the Key

Transporter Fountain is based on Digital Fountain's patented "Meta-Content(TM)" technology that is virtually immune to conditions that are typically found in wide area networks, including delays, packet loss or interruption. With Meta-Content, packet sequence and timing are entirely irrelevant -- the only requirement is that a sufficient number of Meta-Content packets needs to be delivered to ensure delivery of a bit-for-bit perfect copy of the original. There is no limit on file size or number of receivers, thereby enabling Transporter Fountains to scale effortlessly.

Conventional reliable file transfer solutions typically employ FTP, which works well in situations where there is low packet loss and very low delay, as with a LAN or short-haul WAN. However, when used to move large files over global WANs, FTP bogs down or fails altogether. In a typical scenario, FTP would take nearly 10 hours to send a 2 gigabyte (GB) file across the Atlantic, even across a 10 Mbps network.(1) Furthermore, intermittent network interruptions can cause the FTP session to abort. Additional bandwidth would provide almost no benefit.

By contrast, with Transporter Fountain, the same data can be reliably delivered in just half an hour. This is because Meta-Content technology eliminates the need for the back-and-forth "send-acknowledge" process that FTP requires for reliable delivery. While network conditions severely limit bandwidth utilization and can cause aborted transfers with conventional delivery technologies, Transporter Fountain allows administrators to set the exact bandwidth that should be used for a specific transmission, and seamlessly complete data delivery. Transporter Fountain gives network operators total control of maximum bandwidth utilization, and also supports flexible congestion control at the administrator's option.

Two Models Available

The new Digital Fountain products are available in two models: Transporter Fountain(TM) 1000 is a single rack unit appliance that includes 5 GB storage and supports Meta-Content delivery rates up to 10 Mbps. Transporter Fountain(TM) 3000 is designed for enterprise customers that distribute large amounts of data. It is a three rack unit appliance that includes 85 GB of storage and supports Meta-Content delivery rates up to 70 Mbps.

Customers interested in additional product information, including pricing details, should contact Digital Fountain directly at [e-mail].

About Digital Fountain

Digital Fountain is the leading innovator in the delivery of high-volume, mission-critical data and media-rich files over IP networks. Unlike standard servers, the family of Fountain Servers(TM) uses Meta-Content(TM) technology, which encodes data into a series of equations from which an unlimited number of users can reconstruct a perfect copy of the original content. Meta-Content technology eliminates the need for retransmissions or receipt acknowledgement and makes data loss irrelevant. As a result, Fountain Servers deliver data faster and more reliably than any other data transport technology or product. For more information please call 510-284-1400, send a fax to 510-284-1499 or send e-mail to [e-mail]. Company information is also available at www.digitalfountain.com.

(1) Assuming a round-trip time of 200 milliseconds and 1 percent packet loss (far less than typical for transatlantic connections), the absolute maximum throughput possible with standard FTP is less than 500 Kbps -- regardless of the amount of bandwidth available.

Note to Editors: Fountain Server, Transporter Fountain, Meta-Content, Digital Fountain and the Digital Fountain logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Digital Fountain, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.